AVWS - Week Two.

It's been a busy week, it's been a very busy week. First of all I finished the second owl enclosure. Both of the owl enclosures are ready now and we'll move Elly, the Great Horned, tomorrow. Our friend Gandalf has to wait inside till the weather gets better. We had some warm days but the nights are still cold and today...we have a snowstorm, seriously!

In the meanwhile we are still feeding babies. We have to feed every two hours. Nine squirrels and the raccoon -Carlos- at 6 am, four squirrels at 8 am, the raccoon at 9 am and that all day long. There's hardly any time to do something else between two feedings. I usually start to help with the feeding from 4 pm till 10 pm which is the last feeding. Hannah mostly starts with the 8 am feeding and helps till the last one, which is very exhausting. This job asks a lot of concentration and that till the very last minute. Unfortunately one of the little baby squirrels died on thursday. The three older squirrels -Rocky, Carla & Clyde- that came in last week, are doing great.

I told you that the sanctuary has two big cats as permanent residents. The cats have been here for a long time. They were here before the current staff took over two years ago. Subira is an African Lioness, she was bought by a seventeen year-old girl in British Columbia for $50. She got too big and dangerous and ended up in the sanctuary. It's a shame that every canadian citizen is allowed to breed, sell and rent these big, exotic cats and exotic animals in general. It should be prohibited by law like it is with any native species in this country. I might write my paper on that subject but it's a very big picture. I'm planning to build an enrichment construction for Subira to make her work for her food and to keep her busy.

The second cat is Banshee, a Eurasian Lynx and eventhough this wild cat is bloodrelated to the Canadian Lynx (call it subspecies but it's practically the same animal living on a different continent), she is an exotic cat and can not be released. She's been used in TV-commercials as a kitten... Her enclosure needs a refreshment so that's another priority on our 'things to do'-list!

Do you guys remember Thurber? The suburn Bassethound we've met in Maberly? The unhappy one that was looking for an adoption family? Well you see...we loved him and wanted to adopt him but we couldn't find a place for him to stay in Belgium till we're back because practically nobody replied our emergency call, very sad. We thought things through, we made some arrangements and we're proud to introduce you all to our new travelcompanion, yup...he's officially ours now, Meet The Rocket, again!!!

We drove to the Lanark Highlands on Wednesday to pick him up! It was great to see Rosemary and all her animals again. She was proud to tell us that the last lambs of the season were born, a beautiful black twins! She had a newborn Highland calf and all the others were doing fine. To get to Maberly we had to cross Algonquin PP again and guess what we saw...(five of them : ))!!!

We also met our first wild bear and I spotted a coyote. Wild bears come wandering around on the sanctuary looking for food so we have to be careful from now on. Well a new busy week is coming up! Several things have to be done before the general meeting on the 25th. More news next week about Elly in her new enclosure, the awakening of the bearcubs and many more.

Take care and enjoy spring! Ontario's trees are still leafless...: (

T,H&The Rocket.